When Vivian Orlen, principal of Portland's Grant High School, declared last spring that even the school's top students would be limited to taking three college-level courses this year, many parents were astonished -- and angry.

Orlen's stance confirmed fears they'd harbored since she arrived as the unlikely leader of Portland Public Schools' biggest high school, with its tradition of academic, athletic and co-curricular excellence: She was determined to help poor and minority students and would do so at the expense of high achievers.

The push back was fierce.

Since then, Orlen has faced other tests, including a much-publicized hazing incident among Grant athletes and treatment for cancer, diagnosed late last fall.

Her trajectory during 18 months at Grant illustrates how difficult it can be for even the most determined principal to change a big high school, especially against a double whammy of budget cuts and opposition from parents with clout.

But Orlen's story also illuminates a more surprising truth: A skillful principal can change a tradition-bound high school -- and win fans doing it.

Orlen, Grant's first white principal in more than a decade, came to Portland after two decades as a teacher and principal in New York City, where she headed small high schools that enrolled mainly poor and minority students.

During job interviews, she vowed to make Grant better for the low-income and minority students who populate the lower tracks, the dropout ranks and other unshiny paths at the storied Northeast Portland school.

Such talk wasn't new at Grant, which enrolls more black and Latino students than Portland's three other large predominantly white schools but where many Advanced Placement classes don't include a single African American.

With less than a full year at Grant under her belt, Orlen declared that college-level courses would have to be rationed to provide more balance in the school's offerings. That was new.

Given tight budgets, most local high schools ration what students can take, limiting them to one class per subject or declaring some courses full. Like Grant, most schools with eight periods require study halls.

But Orlen's limits were tighter and more public. Many parents, already alarmed after watching schools endure years of cuts, concluded the worst: Orlen wanted to strip away opportunities for the hardest-working students to take tough classes from the best teachers, potentially hurting their college prospects, to help less motivated teens.

Ellen Fortin, a Harvard graduate whose son aced AP European history as a Grant sophomore, and then-junior Sandra Seppalainen, who passed AP calculus as a freshman, were incensed.

"There is a posse of us that fervently, furiously started writing letters," Fortin says.

"More than really helping those who don't want to push themselves, she decided to limit the stronger students," says Seppalainen, the school's only female National Merit Scholarship finalist this year.

But something surprising happened when Grant's most driven students had to operate under Orlen's limits: In case after case, they were plenty challenged after all.

View full sizeBetsy Hammond / The OregonianGrant Principal Vivian Orlen talks informally with students including Jonathan Schell about their college plans.

Kaarin Smith, who was a vocal opponent of limits, is watching with delight as her daughter, Emily, finishes Grant on a high note. Yes, she has two empty spots in her eight-period schedule. But she is taking AP calculus, AP physics, college-credit English and the class that helps prepare Grant's uber-competitive Constitution Team.

"She has been pushed to her limit ... she has truly been stretched. Her teachers are hands-down amazing. It's turned out better than I thought," Smith says.

Seppalainen, a varsity soccer player, ended up with college-credit English and world civilization, AP biology and the Constitution Team class, along with a glorified study hall and freshman mentoring. She chafed against the limit but now says she wouldn't add a college-level course if Orlen let her. "I do things quicker than most people, but this is definitely a lot of work," she says.

Reaching out

Orlen's name is still muttered with contempt by a few parents and teachers. But far more say they now count themselves as fans.

Why? According to parents, teachers and students, it's because she reaches out to parents and to students, including some whose voices had not previously been heard; listens extremely well; and explains what she is planning and why. Most now believe she wants to do better for all Grant students.

"She doesn't want to take down Grant High School," says Fortin, a convert. "She wants Grant to be highly, highly successful. She is committed to it. ... I can quibble about some things. But really, what more can we ask for?"

The most recent step that built Orlen's fan club: She responded quickly, openly and with a constructive attitude to painful reports of hazing.

Despite being derided for caring only about struggling low-income and minority students, Orlen and her administrative team have so far made only modest changes that directly benefit them.

they added five of catch-up math, complete with small class sizes and paid student tutors, most of them minorities. Math teachers say the results for students who were failing math, a group that is disproportionately black, are remarkable.

View full sizeRandy L. Rasmussen / The OregonianIn this August 2010 photo, Vivian Orlen works in her office-without-walls at Grant High. She works at her desk in full view of teachers and other visitors to the school office to send the message she is accessible. Students say she encourages them to email her with questions, concerns or suggestions -- and she usually gets right back to them.

Orlen also has encouraged teachers, particularly of freshmen, to help those who fail a required class to redo some of it and recapture the credit without having to go to night or summer school. High course failure rates among minority students should be something the school addresses, not something students must fix on their own, she says.

Many of the changes she's made or that are on tap for next year can't be pegged as helping struggling students or students of color in particular, although Orlen thinks they'll hit that mark, too.

Every freshman now takes a writing class alongside English, giving them twice the time with that teacher plus better writing skills.

Orlen favors spicing up the curriculum to keep students engaged. A challenging hands-on, social justice-oriented class called "Project Citizen" is a new alternative to the government class required of seniors. In place of generic "junior English," students were allowed to pick thematic courses such as

creative writing or "Living in the USA." Of 400 juniors, only about 60 chose the old junior English class.

"The right leader"

Orlen has made progress despite hurdles. She is a newbie in a district where many power brokers are long-timers. The school lost the equivalent of five teaching slots to budget cuts this year. And she underwent grueling chemotherapy and radiation treatment in December and January. Her cancer meant she was largely absent from the school in January; doctors said she would be too weak to return until late February, at the earliest.

But news of the hazing among junior varsity basketball players on Jan. 12 prompted her return to work a month early. She felt she needed to show leadership during the crisis, keep parents in the loop, and work with teachers to hold open, constructive dialogue that reached every Grant student.

View full sizeBeth Nakamura/The OregonianVivian Orlen ran into opposition when she pushed changes to the Grant High currriculum, including more math catch-up classes and limits on Advanced Placement. But leaders of the PTA and site council rave about her, and many others have come around. "People have come to appreciate, perhaps, that I am an ally for all kids," she says.

"It's who she is -- she wants to tackle things," says counselor Liz Mahlum.

That includes questioning long-standing practices, from limiting courses to students in certain grades to accepting that seniors tease freshmen at pep assemblies, Mahlum and others say. "She has done an excellent job of engaging the staff as a whole in talking about what we've done and what we should change," Mahlum says.

approves. "I love Vivian. She has been totally the right leader at the right time."

Orlen thinks the reason she's won over many skeptics may be simple: She adores teenagers. She has showered students with attention and appreciation, says senior Ruby Sutton. She visits classes, holds student-input sessions and has made hundreds of appearances at games, plays, choir rehearsals and club events.

Says Orlen: "As kids got to build relationships with me, they became my ambassadors to their parents, (telling them) 'Ms. Orlen isn't so bad. She really does care about all kids.' I do really believe that building relationships is part of my job. And I'm good at it."